1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a shift lever apparatus for a vehicle, and more particularly, to a structure of a shift lever apparatus used for automatic transmission vehicles with a manual mode.
2. Description of Related Art
In the automatic transmission vehicles, P-, R-, N-, and D-ranges are usually arranged straight, one of the shift ranges can be selected by pivoting a shift lever, and as the shift lever pivots, a cable 500 is pulled, as shown in FIG. 1, so that the operation force is transmitted to a transmission.
Referring to FIG. 1, since the point where the cable 500 is connected to the shift lever 502 is a portion separated above from the pivot point C of the shift lever 502, as the shift lever 502 pivots, the portion where the cable 500 is connected to the shift lever 502 moves up/down in accordance with the pivot angle and the up-down movement of the portion where the cable 500 is connected causes the efficiency of transmitting the operation force to a transmission to decrease.
The shift lever apparatus has an M-range for a manual mode following the D-shift other than the P-, R-, N-, and D-ranges such that the manual mode can be selected by moving the shift lever 502 perpendicular to the straight line made by the P-, R-, N-, and D-ranges. Further, in the manual mode, the operation of the shift lever 502 in the forward (+)/backward (−) operation is detected only by a sensor and transmitted to a transmission without using the specific cable 500.
FIG. 2 is a view comparing the operation structure of the shift lever device of the related art which can select the manual mode, in which the left one shows the D-range and the right one shows the M-range. In the left one with the shift lever 502 pivoted in the left-right direction toward an engaging lever 504, a connection protrusion 508 of the shift lever 502 is inserted in the engaging lever 504, so the P-, R-, N-, and D-ranges can be selected by pivoting the shift lever 502 in the front-rear direction and the operation force is transmitted to a transmission through a cable connected to a cable connection portion 506 on the engaging lever 504.
In the right one showing the M-range with the shift lever 502 pivoted away from the engaging lever 504 and the connection protrusions 508 of the shift lever 502 completely separated from the engaging lever 504, when the shift lever 502 is pivoted in the front-rear direction, an electric signal for selecting the forward (+) or the backward (−) of the manual mode is generated through a sensor and the manual mode is activated.
However, as described above, in the structure with the engaging lever 504 and the shift lever 502 on the same shaft S as individual pivot bodies, the width W needs to be relatively large due to the thickness of the engaging lever 504, the thickness of the shift lever 502, and the arrangement relationship therebetween for achieving the operation and the large width of the shift lever 502 and the engaging lever 504 reduces mounting convenience because shift lever apparatuses for common use need to be easily mounted on various vehicles.
That is, the smaller the width and volume of the mechanism made by the shift lever 502 and the engaging lever 504, the easier the mechanism to be mounted on various types of vehicles, which is advantageous in terms of convenience of mount, but the structure is a little difficult to be mounted.
The information disclosed in this Background of the Invention section is only for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art already known to a person skilled in the art.